Small Comfort
by D. M. Evans
Summary: She doesn't see him as a monster.


Title - Small Comfort

Author D M Evans

Disclaimer - I don't own them

Characters/Pairing - gen fic, Heine, Naoto, Nill

Timeline/Spoilers - soon after Naoto starts hanging out in the church

Warning - angst

Summary - She doesn't see him as a monster.

XXX

"You're thinking hard."

Heine's ruby gaze slid toward Naoto. She rarely addressed him so bluntly, sounding so much like Badou. Sprawled on a pew, staring up at the vaulted ceiling, Heine had been trying very hard not to think because his current train of thought hurt. "Just the opposite."

Naoto leaned her arms against the polished wood of the pew, tucking her chin on them. He couldn't determine if she were curious or just bored. Probably the latter. "I don't believe you."

Heine pulled himself up into a sitting position. He cast a glance in Nill's direction. She sat in the corner, practicing her darning on yet another piece of clothing he'd trashed. A large bruise marred her upper arm from where she had tripped and hit a pew. Nill was too tough to let something small like that stop her, but when she fell earlier, the sight of her on the ground, rubbing her arm had opened the floodgate to his twisted memories. He could see the other girls he'd been raised with – Lily – sprawled on the ground, bloodied, hurt badly, and a tickle of fear and concern ran up his spine.

When Naoto had asked, Heine had been thinking that he and Nill were too much alike in some ways. It was probably why he liked her and didn't feel frightened around her. They were both cooked up in a lab; her for perverts to use up until there was nothing left of her, while he'd been created for darker purposes. Nill has suffered so much in her short life, as had he. Hell, so had Naoto, which he supposed was one of the reasons he was learning not to mind her, either. Naoto's question had jolted him out of staring at the paintings on the ceiling; had interrupted his wondering how anyone believed in God. If there was one, he obviously didn't give a shit. No God had a hand in his creation. Heine knew his maker, a woman who'd left him terrified of her sex. His wounds were just now healing in tiny measures with the calm presence Nill and, to a lesser degree, Naoto, herself. Funny, the only wounds his freak body couldn't heal were the ones in his head.

"I was thinking I don't like seeing bruises on Nill."

The girl looked up at him, hearing her name. She frowned just a bit, her wings ruffling.

"No one likes to see their friends hurt," Naoto replied.

Heine's lip twitched. "Friends, that's still a strange idea to me."

"From what little you've told us about your life, I can understand that." Naoto's eyes darkened. "I don't have many friends. And I'd be surprised if Nill has, either."

"An arrested life," Heine muttered. "Bishop said that about me once, that my whole life was held prisoner." He met Naoto's gaze only briefly before he had to look away. "You only know a hint of what that life was like.

Naoto glanced about as if expecting Bishop to make a sudden reappearance. "You can tell me about it, if you want. It's not often you see a guy like you who's afraid of women."

For a moment, he wondered what a 'guy like him' meant; then he shrugged. "You never met _her_, not even sure you could called her a woman." Heine scowled. He might not like to think of her that way, but Einsturzen was a woman. He remembered the sensation of her soft breasts pushing against his back as she held him tight, raving about how she'd love him if he did well in battle. He'd been so young then. Her love terrified him more than her loathing. "Mad scientist. That's what she was." He held out his pale hands. "She made me. I wasn't born. She mixed me and my siblings up in a Petri dish or some damn thing. I don't know. I'm not even human."

"Human enough to worry about being human," Naoto countered. "More human than some men I've known. Human enough to care about a young woman with a bruise on her arm."

Heine knew she was trying to be comforting, but all he could see was red. "I cared about Lily, too. I wanted to help her." He paused. "I pulled her apart. I had my hands in her guts. I'm not a good friend." His voice was flat as beer left open for a week. He stared at his hands as if expecting them to be still stained red.

"Don't you think that place, that scientist, had something to do with you and what happened?" Naoto's voice sounded hushed in his ear.

His palm slammed into the pew in front of him, the wood creaking ominously. "I'm a monster."

"Maybe, but from what I've seen you're not so bad." Naoto touched his shoulder. Instead of the touch turning him into a gibbering mess, he only flinched a little. There was something okay about it. Nill popped up and came over to sit next to him, obviously understanding the distress that remembering that place and those women put him in.

"Your life is the monstrous thing, not you." Naoto continued, squeezing his shoulder. Nill rested her head against his other shoulder.

Heine sighed, letting his body relax as much as it could surrounded by so much femininity. For a moment, he let how he really felt show through. "Thank you."


End file.
